


For I See What I Destroy

by Anonymous



Category: Urban Shadows (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Panic Attacks, Self-Hatred, Unhealthily Comparing Your Abuse to Someone Else's, Victim Blaming, the working title for this was "Faidra having a bad time"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27772645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: What do you do when you meet someone who has been through the same bizarrely specific traumatic experience that you have, only theirs was much, much worse?(or, what was going through Faidra's head after the 11/21 session.)
Kudos: 3
Collections: Anonymous





	For I See What I Destroy

Faidra burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag she’d borrowed from Declan, completely hidden except for the dark tangle of curls that fanned out across her pillow. She lay as still as possible, trying not to rustle her polyester cocoon as she listened to Delos breathing quietly on the bed above. For a while she could hear him fidgeting and sighing fretfully, but eventually he stilled, his breathing deep and even. 

She poked her head out just far enough to see Delos lying on his side facing her, eyes closed, curled up into a tight ball under the covers. Satisfied that he was really asleep, Faidra crawled out of the sleeping bag and crept into the hallway, careful not to disturb him.

Declan’s bathroom was a lot like the rest of his apartment: a little bigger and shinier than it needed to be, and strangely empty. There was nothing on the sink except a half-full bottle of hand soap and the toothbrushes she and Delos had brought from her place. Faidra supposed Declan kept all of his stuff in the cabinets surrounding the mirror, or maybe one of the big drawers under the sink - there was certainly plenty of space. Actually, she was pretty sure that most of them would turn out to be empty, but she didn’t bother to look. 

The lights in the bathroom were almost oppressively bright, making Faidra’s face look ghostly and washed-out in the mirror, the bags under her eyes standing out like deep shadows. She looked away from her reflection and sat carefully down on the floor, just in time for her legs to start trembling. Soon her whole body was shaking, her heart racing, her breath coming too fast as images flashed through her mind. Nothing prophetic, nothing she hadn’t already seen before, just memories: Jason as he had appeared in her vision, messy-haired and scowling; the look on Delos’s face when he’d read Felicity’s ultimatum; the way the kid stared at her whenever she asked him a question, like he was trying to figure out what she wanted him to say. 

Faidra didn’t have a lot of panic attacks, and she wasn’t very good at dealing with them - all but the very worst visions were easier for her to manage - so she rode this one out, curled up on the cold tiles of Declan’s bathroom floor. She had no idea how much time had passed by the time she finally stopped shaking and her heart rate returned to something like normal. The tank top she’d worn to sleep was damp with sweat, as was her forehead. Faidra sat up, pushed away the damp curls sticking to her face, and used the edge of the sink to pull herself to her feet. She turned on the cold tap and let it run for a little while, then held her hair back and stuck her face into the freezing water. 

It helped a little. Faidra’s head felt clearer, and she seemed more present in her own body, as though the cold had washed away the clinging cobwebs of her last few visions. But nothing could change what she had seen. Even now, she could almost  _ feel _ the memories, like twinges of ghostly pain in her neck and wrists. 

She shuddered, then grabbed a towel and buried her dripping face in it. 

_ Jason.  _ Faidra wasn’t sure why seeing him had shocked her so much. Lysander was working for Felicity, and it made perfect sense that he’d take his best people with him. In retrospect, the real surprise was that Lysander’s favorite enforcer hadn’t shown himself until now. 

It scared her to think he still had such a hold over her after two years of freedom (or two years of hiding - whatever she felt like calling it on any particular day). He hadn’t looked at her, hadn’t even known she could see him, yet the sight of him had almost been enough to push her over the edge. 

Almost. If Faidra had been alone, she might have managed to calm down and fall asleep eventually. But instead Delos had woken up, and he’d tried to comfort her, and that conversation had shattered her heart like a plate dropped carelessly into an empty sink. 

The worst part was, she’d  _ asked  _ him about Lysander. She’d wanted him to open up to her a little more - Walter had said it might help him to talk about it, and she’d figured that if anyone could even begin to understand the things he’d gone through, it would be her. 

Fuck, she’d been so wrong.

_ “Miss Felicity didn’t really know what to do with a human. When Mr. Coriolani found out about me, it got a little better. He made sure they fed me at least once a day. Sometimes if I was good, he’d let me watch a movie.” Delos glanced at her face, then stopped talking. He looked a little worried, but he’d looked like that most of the time Faidra had known him. Had he noticed her go still? Was the abject horror churning in her mind visible on her face? Could he sense something, or had she just completely failed to hide her emotions? _

Tears began to well up in Faidra’s eyes, and she mechanically splashed more water on her face. Lysander had kidnapped her off the street and held her prisoner for three years. He hadn’t properly understood her powers, and he hurt her when they didn’t work the way he wanted. He’d convinced her family she was dead so nobody would ever come looking for her. (Well, he’d helped her older brother convince the rest of her family, but if she let herself think about Alex right now she’d  _ really _ lose it.) He’d tortured her, and let other people torture her. (She shoved the mental image of Jason to the back corner of her mind, right next to Alex.)

But she’d had regular meals, a living space almost half the size of her parents’s apartment, access to more books and movies than she would ever have time to consume. She’d had  _ shoes _ , even if she never went outside. Lysander had been cruel, and unfair, but he hadn’t left her to starve in a windowless box with nothing to distract her from her nightmares.

_ My hell was his ‘better.’  _ Felicity had fucked up Delos’s mind more thoroughly in six months than Lysander had done to her in three years. How on earth was Faidra supposed to live with that?

_ If I hadn’t run, Lysander would probably have joined up with Felicity eventually - there’d been friction between him and Borgino for ages by the time I left. And Felicity might have been satisfied with just me. But I ran, and Felicity got another oracle, someone even younger and easier to manipulate.  _

_ I should have stayed. I was twenty-two by then, an adult. I was better off than Delos in every possible way - I could have handled it.  _

She could give Delos a place to live, make sure he didn’t have to worry about basic necessities. She could get him therapy, and help him learn to control his powers better, and maybe even find him some friends his own age. But none of it was enough. 

_ If we can’t deal with Felicity, if the only way to stop her from hurting anyone else is to give her what she wants, she can have me. If that’s what it takes to keep my friends alive and Delos away from her, she can fucking have me. I can handle it.  _

Faidra took one last look at the girl in the mirror, taking in her pale, drawn face and the shadows under her eyes, then turned out the lights and crept back to bed. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from Vienna Teng's "My Medea."


End file.
